The present application relates generally to an improved data processing apparatus and method and more specifically to mechanisms for interpreting the meaning of clinical values in electronic medical records.
Monitoring patients with chronic illnesses, such as congestive heart failure, diabetes, and asthma represents one of the greatest challenges facing modern medicine. Patients with chronic illnesses require ongoing, follow-up treatment and care to properly manage their conditions. Unfortunately, a number of these patients do not receive ongoing treatment and care, receive treatment and care on a sporadic basis, or receive treatment and care which is not in accordance with recommended guidelines. Worse, patients often fail to do the basic simple day-to-day tasks that could prevent or reduce the frequency and magnitude of a catastrophic event such as a hospitalization. As a result, these patients often unnecessarily suffer from symptoms of their chronic illness which would have been minimized or prevented with proper ongoing treatment and care. Additionally, some of these patients may later require hospitalization, or in severe cases some of these patients may die, both of which may have been prevented if the patient was receiving the proper ongoing treatment and care.
In order to track the treatment of patients, medical practices and medical service providers have used various forms of record keeping to maintain a medical history for the patient. While these medical records and medical histories were originally maintained in a hard copy form requiring physical copying and transfer of these records from one medical practice and/or medical service provider to another, with the advent of computer technologies, the maintaining of such records and their transfer has been greatly improved.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 government mandates that medical practices adopt and demonstrate “meaningful use” of electronic health records (EHRs) in order to maintain their existing Medicate and Medicare reimbursement levels. In addition, the Act also provides financial incentives for healthcare providers who prove such meaningful use of EHRs. A meaningful use of EHRs is defined by the federal government of the United States of America as using digital medical and health records to improve quality, safety, efficiency, and reduce health disparities, engage patients and family, improve care coordination and population and public heath, and maintain privacy and security of patient health information. The Act also provides penalties for non-compliance with the Act including a reduction in Medicate reimbursements.
Prior to the Act, many medical practices already implemented computer based electronic medical records (EMRs) for the inherent time saving and efficiency features of such computer based systems. These computer systems are varied and have various capabilities depending on the particular implementation of the hardware and software.